Black dentists turn Driver tragedy into action for locals
Marian Wright Edelman/NNPA Columnist
Issue date: 4/5/09 Section: Health
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The outrage is that Deamonte's life could have been saved by routine dental visits and an $80 extraction. As a response to this needless death, a team of Black dentists have established the Deamonte Driver Dental Project which provides mobile dental services to prevent similar losses from happening in the future.
The inexcusable and unnecessary loss of Deamonte's life is a Dickensian story that started when he complained of a headache. His mother was unable to find a dentist to see him who would accept Medicaid patients, so she took her son to a hospital emergency room where he was given medicine for a headache, sinusitis and a dental abscess and sent home.
He quickly got much sicker and was rushed to surgery, where it was discovered that the bacteria from his abscessed tooth had spread to his brain. Heroic efforts were made to save him including two major operations and eight weeks of additional care costing about $250,000-all too late.
Deamonte's story is not unique. Fewer than one in three of Maryland's 500,000 children who are Medicaid recipients received any dental services last year. This is due to the fact that only about 900 of the state's 5,500 dentists accept Medicaid patients because of the program's low reimbursement rate and bureaucratic red tape. Just arranging a dental appointment can be a major challenge for families that lack transportation or may be periodically homeless and have erratic telephone and mail service.
Soon after Deamonte's death, Black dentists Dr. Hazel J. Harper and Dr. Belinda Carver-Taylor brought together about 50 of their colleagues to determine how to prevent future calamities, and the Deamonte Driver Dental Project was born. Launched last November, the project aims to ''stamp out the epidemic of tooth decay by increasing access and providing early intervention.''
The project is a school-based, grassroots effort that focuses on underserved children from low-income families in Prince George's County. It is sponsored by the Robert T. Freeman Dental Society Foundation, an association of Black dentists from Washington, D.C., and Maryland, with the involvement of local businesses and churches. The Foundation is a local chapter of the National Dental Association.
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